Gringo Trails: Is tourism destroying the world?

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The negative effects of global tourism

Story highlights

Documentary explores fallout from mismanaged tourism in developing world

Filmmaker uses dramatic examples from around world

Films looks at "dark tourism," travel to sites associated with suffering and danger

A new documentary suggests tourism is out of control in parts of the world, irreversibly damaging the environment and indigenous cultures.

"Gringo Trails," a film more than a decade in the making by American anthropologist Pegi Vail, looks at the effect of the unplanned or mismanaged growth of the tourism industry in developing countries.

Using dramatic examples from different continents, such as the devastating impact of hedonistic full moon beach parties on Thailand's Koh Pha Ngan island, the film is moving and informative, if sometimes elementary.

In 1981, Ghinsberg headed into the Bolivian rainforest and soon got lost, but miraculously survived for three weeks despite near-death experiences.

His tale of survival has lured many other adventure-seeking travelers to Bolivia, adding to the pressure on the country's fragile ecosystem.

People who already know the issues won't find much new here, but for the uninitiated it serves as a 78-minute, around-the-world guilt trip revealing the frequent callousness of the tourism industry and how it implicates everyone.

"If I were looking at the oil industry [rather than tourism], people would take note of how powerful it is," says Vail.

"[But] tourism is that type of industry -- it's that powerful."

"Gringo Trails" refers to the well-trodden paths across the globe by "big groups of travelers with power."

And "gringo" no longer just means white faces, says Vail.

In the past few decades, the traveling middle class has expanded to include different faces from many different cultures.